


Teenage Wasteland

by leodayumcaprio



Category: Gossip Girl
Genre: F/M, Memories, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-13 21:26:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17495672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leodayumcaprio/pseuds/leodayumcaprio
Summary: And Dan doesn’t know what her name is but he doesn’t care because it’s clear that she is Aphrodite.





	Teenage Wasteland

**Author's Note:**

> A little one-shot to try and get back into writing fiction. Hopefully will result in more writing.

Only at Dan’s school would there be an impromptu party in the library.

It’s 5pm on a Friday in the first week of his freshman year. He is sitting at a study table, brow furrowed and mind buried in an astronomy book as thick as his forearm. He laments how he will ever manage an ‘A’ in physics, let alone be number one in his class. It is week one and the numbers already make his head spin. Dartmouth has a renowned astronomy department, so they would surely be impressed by his efforts, even if all he wants is to sit in lecture theatres, wear a black turtleneck, smoke clove cigarettes and debate the merits of Huxley over Orwell and whether Lady Macbeth could ever be interpreted as being one of the Three Witches.

But it’s the first week of school and he must be the only one already thinking about college, because all he sees is his classmates loosening their ties, one carrying a boombox. The faculty have gone home for the week - none of them need the overtime hours with what a school like this pays them. And just this year they have introduced a policy of 24/7 access to the school library, for those overachievers and/or outcasts that Dan already knows he is becoming.

And suddenly, the library is alive with some raucous Top Forty hit and it is impossible for Dan to concentrate. He starts to pile his belongings into his satchel, but there’s a trick of the light and suddenly he is looking at her. And then he is no longer polite - not looking, but staring.

He doesn’t know her - he doesn’t know anyone here yet. They’ve all known each other since birth and they ignore him. He is the scholarship kid from Brooklyn; he does not matter. He’s a dime a dozen. And all he’s here to do is study, so he doesn’t care to be known. But seeing this girl makes him wish for a moment that he were important enough for her to know him, for her to want him.

She is statuesque with long blonde hair that infectiously waves around her as she jumps onto a study table to dance. And Dan doesn’t know what her name is but he doesn’t care because it’s clear that she is Aphrodite. Her eyes are closed, her smile carefree, travelling somewhere beyond this room. And Dan desperately wishes that he could be in the passenger seat. 

She owns the room without even trying. Everyone in the room surrounds her, the guys whooping and cheering; the girls desperately trying to copy the movements that seem to come to her so naturally. Dan tongue flickers over his lip and he desperately wishes that he had his journal here right now, so he could compose something that befit her, that befit this moment. 

\--*--

But today, she won’t even look at him and it’s not because she doesn’t know him, it’s because she wishes she didn’t. And every time he sneaks a glance at her over his textbook, the pervading lump in his throat just won’t go away. Here they are, sitting in the exact same room he first saw her in - they have grown a lot over the last four years. And so much has changed.

And even though he knows there is so much between them that can never be rectified, still he feels...hope. Ridiculous, impossible, intractable hope. He knows she is the only person he has ever loved in this way and even if he never gets her back, she will be the great love of his life. In his mind he is running through ridiculous grand gestures he could orchestrate to get her attention, but then remembers that she has always responded better to simplicity. His mind goes blank, then lights up in technicolour. He’s sentimental, sure, but she makes him feel more than anyone ever has.

It’s Friday afternoon and he’s waiting for the final bell, so he can finally talk to her. There is a teacher watching them all like a hawk, to make sure that they are not usurping the purpose of the library. The anticipation eats at him, his heart is in his throat. He knows he has to say something, anything. Maybe they can get together this weekend and talk, fix things, or at least make a start. His hand reflexively reaches towards hers, so close and yet so far, and he has to curl his fingers into a first to stop from caressing her.

He thinks about their first night together, how special it was. The ecstasy as she gasped his name, knowing that at that very moment, they were wrapped up in each other, they were all each other could think about. And in the weeks after they were done, they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. He remembers how she could have so easily taken control, as the more experienced one, but she let him lead, go as slowly as he wanted to, let him explore her body and make the most of it, staying up all night to do it. And surprisingly, as they went on, she didn’t change. She never tried to control any part of it - she let him decide what he wanted, and she was just along for the ride.

But then the bell rings and she’s gone as quickly as she was there. She grabs her bag, runs a hand through her hair and she is walking through the halls alone, but somehow ethereal: above everyone. 

Dan exhales, the lump in his throat ever-present. Somehow he knows that he will never get her back, but the literary hero in him can’t help but try.


End file.
